It depends what you mean by successful. It was (in my opinion) a death blow for roleplay, and it marked the moment at which a large number of our current players switched.

Well, aren't you the one who wants more player empowerment, Verithrax?

Wouldn't having the ability to form guilds linked to a community instead of just clans be a better way of allowing that?

What

I was just laughing at what you said about Houses, which were, as Aiakon already said, a major cause of players leaving. Player empowerment is great, but suddenly killing the guilds that already exist and consolidating them into one mega-guild would accomplish nothing. Frankly right now I think everything needs to be put on a backburner and the primary dev priority should be just keeping novices. Churning out more cool features that only a minute fraction of players ever get to tinker with will not help.

It's the numbers. Novices join and there's no one to talk to them, to answer their questions. I know I had questions and I've been in two other IRE games. If the commune can't keep a minimum number of people online they start losing novices they could have kept because most people don't like to feel like they're wandering through a ghost town calling out 'hello? Anybody home?'.

I know what you're saying about the credits, I started with some to give myself a kick-start here and get some useful abilities and that's just so I can walk around and harvest, no combat. If I had to use only level lessons it would be a boring existence for me. But I think the numbers are a lot more important. It's sad because it means Glomdoring stays small because it's small, it's not the fault of the people in it.

Houses were created in Achaea because of guilds making insane requirements that prevented the typical person from getting class, as well as stupid requirements just to get out of novicehood. In Lusternia both issues are solved by the graduation system and people automatically getting their skills permanently upon getting out of novicehood.

The issue is not guilds in general, just the lack of people. I'm not sure how getting rid of Glomdoring/Serenwilde would help to solve any of the problems in the slightest or why it's even being suggested in the first place.

If you're going to do away with GNT, at least give GT to novices and give GTS at GR3 or something. Guilds, when their population isn't low, still needs a way to interact with their novices as a group that isn't face-to-face.

Getting rid of GNT completely and giving nothing to replace it would be a really bad move, and would cause problems. GNT is an introduction into the guild. It allows people to see what the guild is like and if they want to remain. Without GNT, people have no way to know if they'll like the guild and its people until its too late and leaving would mean losing lessons.

Its just a really really really bad idea, and I think its just been too long since you've actually played a character to understand that, Estarra.

GTS is definitely necessary at higher GRs to keep guild leader arguments off the GT aethers. Should not be lowered to GR3.

Right, I agree that the numbers is an issue. However, Lusternia's environment as a whole also contributes to the problem. There are a *lot* of skills to learn (far more than I see in, for example, Aetolia... which has a good number of their skills taking half the credits to boot), with a very limited supply of lessons. It's very easy to feel that you are not getting anywhere at all-- either in relationships (nobody to talk to) or in skill (no real advancement with skills at all). As you said, it's very boring trying to rely on the very small number which can be earned.

Further, Glomdoring's size is something which has been in flux for a while. For example, a couple months ago our activity was almost *twice* what it is now. Novices had a lot of attention, but even then there was a fair bit of a retention issue (as there is in any of the other organizations) because numbers is not the only issue. There's a lot more to it than that.

Take Celest, who has for quite some time had the largest number of active citizens. They also are not retaining every single novice-- I would also hazard a guess that they are not retaining even a significant percent of them. They are retaining enough to replace those who leave, but their overall activity rating isn't exploding upwards as you might expect if numbers was the only component.

"GNT across planes" as a solution is predicated on this supposition: "When not enough people are around, there are probably some off-prime."
"GNT across guilds" as a solution is predicated on this supposition: "When not enough people are around, there are probably some in other guilds."
Both of these suppositions are testable and measurable (at least by the admins). So why are people still arguing about it? The admins can simply check and count and be done with it.

Oh, and another comment... you've already talked about trying to encourage novices in an org to hunt together. However, this is seriously impaired by the fact that if novices hunt together, they earn no experience (same as if I take a novice out hunting). They have to reach 21 before they can earn group experience. Further, the experience in Newton for a group would be essentially worthless (it's somewhat low to begin with from 15-21, you one-shot the mobiles which makes a group not all that worthwhile, and even if they could group, half-experience on things which take a while to level on just makes the whole thing more tedious). I'm not really sure how to fix this, beyond to add another small area to Newton beyond the Top of Smoke Mountain (a valley on the other side?) with tougher mobs meant for the 15-20 group. Huntable alone with health/mercy, or in small groups if that thing is done away with. Long as the respawn rate is quick enough and there's a place to sell the corpses for a good amount of gold, you're golden. Doesn't even have to be all that big.

Just another thought-- as I said, I believe it's going to take a *lot* of minor/not-so-minor tweaks to turn the situation around.

It's not just a question of "will this work", Gwy, it's a question of "will it help Lusternia without hurting it too."

Allow me to redirect you to a previous thread that had some really good ideas (that were immediately disregarded for a variety of reasons that were not well-reasoned or even stated, which was then locked with a statement which implied that the administration didn't care for any ideas besides their own).

To reiterate my Big Idea from that thread, create guild-specific guide positions that are able to control a new guild trainer NPC. This will make sure that there is at least one person around to help novices from a guild or city if there are no actual guildmembers around. As this would be a paid (in credits) position, you might actually get people to volunteer.

Oh, please, the thread was locked because of the veiled and not-so-veiled insults flying around.

Since they pointed to that thread,



This is the part I'd like to see. Sometimes I have questions for one person or another and I don't know if they're offplane or not on at all.

Addressing this a bit late, but eh.





Autoclass DESTROYED Achaea's RP environment. It encouraged laziness in houses. i.e. If you can't advance in the Occultist House, for example, leave and join the Blood Congregation or other House. (And this is AFTER guilds dissolved) and empowered rogues. Now, because Achaea didn't - and doesn't - have Lusternia's power system (you can only use certain guild powers with power from the city/commune Nexus), you have people like Bain and Manu running around killing and stealing and other random acts of violence that destroy the enjoyment of playing the game. Lusternia does have rather controlled PK and the power thing, but autoclassing wrecked one IRE game. I'd prefer to NOT have to worry about dying if I leave Celest or having to put up with regular insanity on my city channel.

And Kaervas raised the point that graduating from novicehood and gaining class is A LOT less subject to the whims of your guild superiors. You just play for 24 hours and you're done. The reasons for Achaea switching to Houses just aren't there in Lusternia.

A parting shot including phrases such as "I don't believe there was an overwhelming "player opinion"", "the forums do not reflect the player base", and "somewhat helpful" (which is often used as weaselese for "not helpful but I can't say that to your face") and ending with that smilie does not leave the most positive mark on a locking post, regardless of the reason for the locking.

Additionally, there were no administrative comments on (or even acknowledgement of) over half the ideas in that thread, which is what really gets me. A thread asking for advice should at the very least acknowledge an idea, even if you don't have an opinion on it.

Group hunting needs to be something novices can do together better.

Personally, I would suggest the following.

Merge GNT to CNT

Make CNT able to be heard across all planes.

Give the ambassador and ambassador aides the ability to block people from speaking on CNT.

Change hunting rules for people under level 50 so that it is more profitable to hunt together than it is to hunt alone.

Make a skillchoice option where a Novice can choose to LEARN ALL RECOMMENDED GUILD LESSONS. This sets it up so that the guild can say what they recommend, and if the novice wishes, they can quickly just get all those skills.

Blastron all those statements are true. Estarra tells me to my face that my ideas are terrible on the time, and in public to boot. If the admin don't like ideas, they are not very polite about it, so SHUSH!